Sevens Challenge Series: 2023 schedule

Announced Details and schedule for the 2023 World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series, featuring the men’s and women’s combined tournaments to be played at Markotter Stadium in Stellenbosch, South Africa on 20-22 and 28-30 April 2023.

The winners of the 12-team Women’s Challenge Series will receive the final prize for automatic promotion to the 2024 World Sevens Championshipthe pinnacle of international rugby sevens.

The twelve women’s teams who will compete Belgium, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Madagascar, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Poland, South Africa, Thailand and a South American team yet to be confirmed.

The winner of the men’s Challenger Series, which also has twelve teams, will enter a four-team play-off at HSBC London Sevens in May 2023. Along with teams placed 12-14 after ten rounds of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Serieswhere the winner of the tiebreaker won the title of the 2024 World Sevens Championship.

The twelve men’s teams are Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

Teams qualified through their ranking positions within their respective regional competitions, and the group draw will take place once full squads are confirmed in early 2023.

The tournament repeats the competition format of the Olympic Games. With the twelve teams divided into three groups of four. The top two finishers in each, plus the two best third-place finishers, will advance to the quarter-final and semi-final knockout stages leading up to the bronze and gold medal matches.

The Challenge Series was introduced in February 2020 to further the development of rugby sevens around the world and providing a clear promotional path to the top of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens series.

Japan was the first men’s champion after topping the standings after the two rounds hosted by Chile and Uruguay in 2020. The first women’s competition was scheduled to take place in Stellenbosch in March 2020, but was canceled due to the onset of the pandemic.

after a year’s absence, The Challenger Series returned in August 2022 with one combined event hosted in Santiago, Chile, with Uruguayan men and Japanese women taking the titles and earned promotion to the current edition of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens series.

In 2024, the Challenger series is expected to increase to three rounds and the four seeded teams will enter a playoff with all four Sevens World Championship qualifiers in a grand final event, Which means four men’s and four women’s teams You will have the opportunity to achieve promotion to the highest level of international rugby sevens every year from 2024.